


Crabapple

by carriecmoney



Series: The Dryad Set [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Fantasy, Gen, M/M, dryad!Suga, frog!Daichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriecmoney/pseuds/carriecmoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on the tumblr prompt “my best friend got turned into a frog and now i’m being the best wingman/woman/person ever by carrying them around to bars and getting hot people to kiss them in hopes of hooking them up with their true love” AU</p><p>In which Daichi has great taste in witches but horrible taste in women, Suga has a problem with petals, and the pretty lady at the bar has an idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crabapple

**Author's Note:**

> {A/N: IT BEGINS WITH A ONESHOT  
> Hi don't mind me I'm just over here contributing to another fandom a month after I swore off fandoms forever, move along  
> There will totally be more in this world. I apologize in advance. [my art of the designs in here](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com/post/121634886896) [post with the ideas](http://haimaee.tumblr.com/post/117184210887/mythological-creature-aus) [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/carriecmoney) [tumblr](http://carriecmoney.tumblr.com)}

“I hate witches,” the frog on Suga’s bathroom counter moaned, sliding into the filling sink. Suga raised an eyebrow over the toothbrush in his mouth.

“‘En why you keep da’in and dum’in ‘em?” He scrubbed at his molars while the frog’s triple-lidded eyes closed, soaking in his morning bath. “Move, nee’ta spi’,” he said around his brush, spraying paste.

The frog huffed (well, it was a croak, but Suga could tell) and clambered out so Suga could spit and rinse, the ever-running faucet cleaning out the sink for a new tiny bath. “Anyone who thinks you dryads are perfect creatures never lived with one,” the frog grumbled, scratching his side with a hind foot like a dog. Suga scratched the itch for him, far too used to amphibian slime to notice his sticky fingers. The frog sighed, deflating into a puddle on the counter. “Oh yeah, _right_ there.”

Suga snorted and shoved the frog into the sink, laughing at the affronted croaks and bubbles. “Filthy, Daichi.” The frog stuck his tongue out at him, nabbing a fly on the wall in the process. The one nice thing about Daichi moving in was that his tree’s beetle problem had all but vanished. Suga dropped his toothbrush in its cup and ran a hand through his hair, petals falling from the apple blossoms growing from it. “Hang tight while I get dressed, okay?”

“Like I’ve got a choice,” Daichi the frog mumbled, sink bubbling. Suga chuckled and left him in the bathroom to find clothes.

It had been a month now since Daichi had made the mistake of dumping his latest girlfriend, a witch from the country who had traditional ideas and a traditional temper. Suga had laughed hard enough to shake half the leaves off his tree when the new amphibian hopped his way to Suga’s roots, as glum as a frog could be and dry as a bone. Suga had run a sink-bath and listened to his troubles, and even though he laughed the whole way through, he promised to help his old friend unravel his now-ex’s spell. Daichi had good taste in witches, though, if not in women, and hadn’t found any way around it besides the dreaded, terribly antiquated true love’s kiss. Good luck finding that in this town.

He shrugged on a shirt as gingerly as possible, but more petals fell on his shoulders anyway. He grimaced - he hated when they turned to fruit and his head got overbalanced by apples at the end of summer, only a few weeks away now. He buttoned up his shirt as he wandered to the kitchen to put on tea, yawning. “Say, Daich, you want me to drop you off at the library on my way to work?” he called across his flat, built around the trunk of his tree. Splashes echoed from the bathroom.

“Not the library today. I gotta stop by the school and remind them that yes, I’m still a damned frog, and no, I’m not ready to start teaching their little snotrags again, fuck you very much.” Suga smiled at the sugar bowl. “Then my date’s picking me up from there for the afternoon.” He frowned, eyes narrowed. A _whap_ from the bathroom. “ _Ow!_ Hey, what was _that_ for?” Oops.

Suga reined in the branches of his tree to keep them from scolding Daichi more as he stomped into the bathroom to glare at him. “You’re not going to find your true love on some dating service, Daichi,” Suga said, hands on his hips. Daichi’s frog face scowled from the corner of the sink where he’d huddled to avoid the wrath of Suga’s twigs.

“Well I won’t find her when I’m buried in a pile of books, either!” Daichi scrambled to the counter, dripping water on the wood as he hopped up the knobs of the tree to get to Suga’s eye level. “This is all I know to do right now, you know that!”

Suga glared at Daichi’s rectangular pupils, chest aching for him to be _human_ , tan and taller than him and magic sparking under his skin. His magic was locked away in this form, though, and Suga knew how that ate at Daichi more than losing his thumbs. Suga sighed and looked away.

“I do.” He held out his hands, palms up, for Daichi to hop onto. “Hey, it’s Friday,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s go out tonight, huh? I’ll round the boys up.”

Daichi smiled as much as his frog lips could. “Thanks, Koushi.” Suga sighed and placed Daichi on his shoulder while he finished his morning routine, falling back in their pattern of jibes and jokes over tea.

* * *

Hours later, Suga was sweating under his umbrella of leaves, eating lunch on top of a tree extractor, feet on hot metal as he frowned at the forest ahead. They still had another mile to clear by the end of the day, and he could feel the unhappy trees in the way that were going to raise him some hell before he could convince them that retracting their roots for a replanting really was the best option. He hated his job sometimes.

Two bodies dropped down on either side of him, trying to mooch off his personal shade. He sighed as his leaves fanned out to cover them.

“Thanks, dude,” the dwarf on his left said, combing his fingers through his bleach-streaked beard. “Thought I was gonna pass out - why’s it gotta be so damned _hot_?”

“That’s what you get for growing a coat on your face,” the elf on Suga’s right said, running a hand over his bald head. The dwarf blew a raspberry at him. Suga rolled his eyes.

“ _Children_. Behave.” The elf made a face at both of them. Suga cut his eyes at him, smiling. “Or I won’t invite y’all to go out with us tonight.”

“ _Us?_ ” The dwarf grinned, teeth flashing. “Your boyfrog still croakin’ away over there?”

Suga glared over his sandwich at Nishinoya. “Please don’t call him that to his face.”

“If he ain’t learned to laugh about this shit yet he don’t _deserve_ to be a frog,” Tanaka growled, ripping into the burrito he’d packed for lunch. “Shit’s hilarious.”

“Yes, well, it’s trying to keep him hydrated, the least,” Suga said, picking out a hanging cucumber from his sandwich and popping it in his mouth. “So it’ll be another night of getting pretty girls to kiss him if y’all want to tag along.”

Nishinoya grinned and slapped his back. “Man, I ain’t never gonna pass up a chance to watch a frog flirt! I’m in.” He thrust a thumb into his chest. “ _I’ll_ bring the pretty girls for him to kiss!” Tanaka sputtered a protest, but Nishinoya slid down the scoop of the machine and out of his clutches to pester the driver, a werebear named Asahi, into DDing for their night on the town. Tanaka wrapped an arm around Suga’s neck, pulling the shade closer.

“Don’t worry too hard about it, crabapple,” he crooned, petting his hair, “we’ll find you some pretty naiad to get lucky with, too!” Suga sneered and shoved a hand in Tanaka’s face, ignoring his cackling as he shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth and went off to go bully trees.

* * *

After a long, hot day in the woods that bordered their city, arguing with pine trees (he hated pine trees, they were clingy) while his insane crew clattered around him, all Suga wanted to do was take a bath and talk to his nice, familiar apple tree. But, no, he’d made a promise, so the late summer twilight found him and his frog-roommate meeting his three coworkers at a packed downtown bar. Daichi clung to one of Suga’s branches, pulled in so he wouldn’t hit anybody - but Suga wasn’t above spreading his leaves for crowd control. Dryad crowns had their uses.

As Suga had come to expect, Nishinoya and Tanaka had strung along an entourage of acquaintances to liven up the night, leaving Asahi clinging to Nishinoya’s shirt like Daichi was to Suga. Daichi had the valid fear of falling and being trampled to warrant his sticky hands - well, metaphorically sticky. He was still yelling in Suga’s ear about how awful his afternoon date had been as he’d been doing for the last hour, but stopped mid-sentence when he saw the woman sitting on the end of the bar.

“Holy hell.”

Suga tilted his head at the girl, biting his lip. He recognized that she was pretty, with pale skin and shining black hair that slid over the bared back of her dress when she moved, but as always, he didn’t get what straight boys saw in girls. But Daichi sighed in his ear, and Suga knew the afternoon’s poor soul was gone from his head. A regular Romeo.

“Do you want me to introduce you?” Suga asked, his tone as level as he could hold. Daichi let out his unhappy croak, high-pitched and warbly.

“Sage and thistle, Koushi, not yet! We can’t go laying siege to her before the mud’s off our boots!” Daichi grumbled as their friends caught sight of them and waved them over to the three pushed-together tables they covered. “Can’t take you anywhere.” Suga flicked his side with a finger and smirked at the squeak of pain.

Suga squeezed into the spot saved for him next to Nishinoya and a nymph he’d met a few times before, but couldn’t remember her name for apples. He guided Daichi to the table with a hand as he smiled around, greeting familiar and unfamiliar faces alike. Tanaka lifted one of the arms draped around an elf lady’s shoulders, the other on Suga’s promised naiad. He could have her.

Nishinoya laughed, beer in his beard, and poked Daichi’s side. “Hey boyfrog!” Suga buried his face in his hands as the table laughed and Daichi turned the slightest shade of brown-tinged green. “How goes the curse?” Daichi flipped him the bird, which was easy, since his new hands only had three fingers. Nishinoya laughed, head thrown back, eyes glinting as he waggled his eyebrows at the girls across the table. “I don’t think everyone here knows about our friend Daichi’s poor little problem, huh?” he crowed, slapping Suga’s back instead of squashing Daichi. A mixed bag of answers chorused in discord; Nishinoya climbed on top of his chair, still shorter than some people standing by the bar, and cleared his throat. Suga slid lower in his seat, flowers closing up.

“Attention, kith and kin!” he called over the din of the bar. Daichi croaked, low and pleased, and hopped up Suga to sit on the highest of his branches. “We have a special guest here tonight!” He gestured grandly to the frog in the tree. “Daichi the-” He bent down to mumble, “Hey, you wanna be a prince or an oil baron tonight?”

“Oh, let’s go classic, prince,” Daichi answered, the rumblings of his croak-voice vibrating down the branches to the roots in Suga’s skull.

“Daichi the _prince_ of - _Whatitstan_! Is here!” He swirled his hands around Daichi, catching a few of Suga’s falling petals in his whirlwind. “But he is under an _evil_ spell that only the _purest_ of loves can lift!” He gave his hammiest wink to the girls in the crowd as they ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ appropriate to his speech. “Will anyone accept this challenge and rescue the prince?” Some of the new girls at their shoved-together tables laughed and reached out, joking for their chance to turn the frog back into a prince - or maybe just a nice, handsome man. Daichi preened under the attention as much as a frog could, hopping over from Suga’s branches to the antlers of a pretty fawn across the way, fumbling the landing a little but entertaining the tipsy girls nonetheless. Nishinoya dropped back down in his chair as Suga stood from his, escaping the revolting display to find out if this bar carried pear cider.

There had been no success when Suga returned to the table, draft cider in one hand and a shallow bowl of beer for Daichi to crawl into in the other, where he could absorb the alcohol through his skin. Suga sat down and scratched the back of his slimy head absently, letting the wave of bar noise roll over him as he nursed his drink, watching everyone from his quiet corner.

Daichi hadn’t forgotten about the beautiful barfly, though. At the bottom of Suga’s cider, he squirmed under Suga’s hand until he could look back over the rim of the bowl.

“Hey.” He jerked himself in the direction of the bar. “She still there?”

Suga rolled his eyes and leant back in his chair to check. “Yeah, hasn’t moved since we got here.” He ran his tongue between his upper lip and his teeth. “You sure you wanna do this?”

Daichi fixed him with a rectangle stare. “I’m not going to miss out on a potential chance to get out of _this_ just because you don’t want to get up, Koushi.” He flicked his tongue out, a flash of pink. “Sure, I can always get Noya or Tanaka to come-”

Suga stood, chair shooting out behind him. Daichi _smirked_ , the evil little toad bastard. “You owe me, you little snipe,” Suga huffed, lifting Daichi to his shoulder, where he dripped beer and slime onto the leather perch Suga had put on the shoulders of all his shirts two days after he’d moved in. Daichi chortled, an odd choir of ribbits, as he clutched a branch for balance.

“You think I already don’t?” He rubbed his cheek against Suga’s jaw. “You’re too good to me, Koushi.”

Suga couldn’t help the shudder at cold frog skin on his face and wiped at the mucus smear. “And you get drunk faster as a frog then you ever did as a human.” He shoved his way to the bar to the barfly’s right side, smile polite as he waved down the bartender for another cider. Drinking apple cider felt like drinking his own blood, but pears were uppity, so served them right.

“Hey, have you got the whole bar under your spell or is it just me?”

Suga rubbed his nose, eyes clenched shut, as the barfly lady looked at him - at his shoulder parasite. “Oh.” She tilted her head at him, then ran two fingers down Daichi’s back, between his wide eyes down to his tail. Suga could feel the puff of her magic against his neck and the corresponding shiver from Daichi. Oh, great, _another_ witch. Daichi purred, a rumbling croak. Her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Hm.” She shook her head and faced the bar again. “No, just you.”

Suga snorted into the new cider he’d just gotten. Daichi kicked his neck with a hind foot before hopping down onto the counter, coming out from the shelter of his leaves. “I’ll have you know that under all of this mucus and warts is a _true_ warlock!” he said, throat puffing out. She pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold in her giggle, corners of her mouth twitching.

“You’re stuck, eh?” Suga liked this witch. He grinned at her around his glass as Daichi croaked, a triplet of affronted squawks. “Having trouble finding that kiss?”

Daichi flattened on the bar. “I hate witches,” he groaned. She patted her two fingers on his head.

Suga chuckled, shoulders shaking. “Not for lack of trying,” he offered, “he’s pretty much kissed every eligible bachelorette he met since he got cursed.” Daichi glared at him, but Suga just shrugged, eyes crinkled.

“Have you tried family?” Dryad and frog blinked at her as she sipped her cocktail. “You know it doesn’t have to be a romantic true love.”

This croak sounded like a balloon poked by a pin. “Everyone’s across the world or awful,” he said, dropping the flirt front at the first breath of academics. Suga raised an eyebrow - when had he even thought about that?

“How about your friend?” She glanced at Suga - she did have the most intriguing eyes, clear like rain, but Daichi’s human mud was more organic - wait. “You must be close.” He paled to a pea green, branches shaking. Daichi shuffled in place - Suga’s focus narrowed. Daichi was the opposite of a fidgeter. Sometimes he’d wondered if there was a rock elemental in his bloodline. So…

She drained the last of her drink, stirring the ice cubes with her straw. “If you try, then I’ll try.” She tilted her head, the faintest of smiles lightening her eyes. “I like experiments.”

“Uh.” Daichi scratched just behind his earhole with a hind foot. “If Koushi doesn’t mind, I guess…”

His leaves were trembling. He crossed his eyes up at them, glaring them into submission. “Well, uh, I guess it can’t hurt.” The witch watched, impassive, as Suga held out his hands for Daichi. He hopped up, frog face impossible to read. Suga swallowed. “Here goes.”

He raised Daichi up to face height. Took a deep breath. Another. _Suck it up, Koushi_.

He jammed Daichi’s side against his face, cold and sticky and a lot grosser than just holding him. _Ugh_.

He was too busy wiping his mouth on his unpatched shoulder to notice the bubbles until one popped on his cheek, startling him with the fizz of magic. He blinked - his hands were covered in them, foaming out of Daichi like detergent in a dishwasher. Suga yelped and dropped him - but the bubbles just grew with his fall, stretching out into a man-shape as Suga’s heart pumped, his eyes blown wide.

The witch hid her smile with two fingers.

With a muffled _pop_ , Daichi burst back into existence, very soggy, very human, and _very naked_. He gasped as conversation halted, his dizzy eyes fixed on Suga. _Oh_.

Suga licked his lips (ugh, mistake). Daichi grinned and said, “I guess I can go back to work now.” Then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he fainted onto Suga, who just barely caught him - he’d forgotten how _heavy_ the bastard was.

Nishinoya’s unmistakable howl broke the sudden silence, a beat ahead of Tanaka’s. The bar cheered and clapped - even the witch - but Suga was too busy struggling with this dead weight and too, too, too many questions to care.

“Asahi!” he screamed, losing his grip on a slippery Daichi. The standing room crowd parted for the werebear as he wriggled his way through, catching Daichi under the arms. He looked over his nodding head, eyes wide.

“She fixed it?”

The witch wrinkled her nose as Suga grimaced. “No. He did,” she said, pointing at Suga with her straw. Asahi’s jaw dropped. Suga’s face flamed, as bright as his summer leaves.

“Please, no, let’s just get him home,” he said in a low rush, trying to shield him from the onlookers, branches fanning out in a flutter. He glanced up at the witch as Asahi shouldered Daichi, still confused as hell, but covering his ass as he shoved his way out to the street. She tilted her head at him.

“You’re welcome.” The nervous bubble in him burst with the last of the transformation magic, and he grinned.

“Thanks, I guess.” He dug for his wallet and threw a few bills on the bar in front of her, extracting an old receipt and the pen he kept in one of his branches. He scribbled his name and number down and shoved it at her. “Anyone who can talk that idiot around is worth a call, yeah?”

Her nose twitched as she took the receipt. “It’s Kiyoko.”

He beamed. “Great, Kiyoko then!” He saw Nishinoya hopping over heads to get to him and clenched his teeth. “I’ll let you know how things go, yeah?” She nodded, once, and he ran, wincing when his expanded branches whacked a few heads and the doorframe as he escaped to the open night air.

* * *

When Asahi left him alone in his apartment with his naked true love conked out in his bed, Suga couldn’t stop. He fidgeted around his kitchen, cleaning up dishes, straightening the mess on his tiny breakfast table, running through his tree for any bad spot – anything to avoid his bedroom. He even strung up his hammock for tonight’s bed between obliging branches over his roof, the deep night clearing his head a little. But how could he sleep? How could _anyone_ sleep after… whatever the hell just happened in that bar?

God, he’d never be able to show his face there again.

He sat down hard on the roof, face in his hands. Kiyoko the _evil_ witch had talked them into it with the promise of platonic friendship being just as good as romantic, but the thrill that shot through him when Daichi smiled at him was unlike anything he’d ever felt with his other friends. No, no way was that… not for _him_ , at least. Did the curse care if the kinds of love weren’t equal?

He groaned and threw himself in his hammock, branches starting their retreat for the night. These were the kind of philosophical mysteries Daichi liked to answer, rolling around thoughts and scenarios like marbles as he worked on his latest paper or talked through lesson plans with Suga over coffee. Suga was the one who smiled and nodded, occasionally spurring him on with a quiet question, but mostly watching his face as he unraveled their universe. Suga was a construction dryad, not a philosopher.

He fell asleep with questions tumbling in his head, exhaustion giving away to excitement at last, the cool night breeze rocking him.

When he woke up, in his hammock on the roof with his shoes on, he was groggy and unhappy and he couldn’t remember why. He groaned and sat up, rubbing his crusty eyes with his palms. It was daybreak, a pale pink glow through the orchard of his apartment complex. His branches stretched with him, opening up from their nighttime curl and reaching to the east. His mouth tasted foul; he yawned as he rolled out of his hammock and padded down to his bathroom, water gurgling in the sink. He blinked down at it as he brushed, his sluggish mind taking a full minute to realize what was missing.

He made himself rinse off his toothbrush and scrub down his face with a washcloth before he continued his circuit around his circular flat to the bedroom cubby, breath unsteady. Daichi was still asleep, in the same sprawl from where Asahi had dumped him hours ago, so unlike the contained ball he slept in before his transformation. Suga let out his held breath and crawled into the nook, folding his legs to the side when he sat on the edge of the mattress, kicking off his shoes and socks at last to press his toes to bark. The slow, heavy, not-quite-heartbeat of his tree steadied him and his hand as he reached out to touch Daichi’s face, tracing his bared jawline, still cut sharp, like his cheekbones. At least that hadn’t changed. He ruffled his hand through Daichi’s short hair, coarse and thick, and so what if he was taking advantage of his unconsciousness? It was _his_ kiss that had brought him back, after all. He gulped, hand stilling. His _love_. Oh dear.

Daichi twitched under him – groaned. Suga jerked his hand back as Daichi’s face twisted before he hid his face in the pillow. “ _Ow_.”

Suga laughed despite himself, rubbing a hand down the sheets covering Daichi’s back. “Welcome back, warlock.” Daichi’s shifting froze – a beat, and he jerked up, looking around – at Suga. He grinned.

“Hey, you’re not huge anymore!” Suga laughed, head thrown back, as Daichi spun to sit up, beaming at the world. His brow furrowed, tongue in his teeth as he twisted something in the air – a spark of flame shot up and died in a flash in the air. Suga grinned, his branches full of more flowers than leaves now. His sheets pooled around Daichi’s waist – oh, he was still _very_ naked. But Daichi didn’t seem to care, making another flame burst out before he fell on Suga in a hug, nearly knocking both of them off the bed with his force. Suga’s breath left him, his chest full of tomorrow’s sunlight. Daichi reared back and grabbed Suga’s face in both hands, eyes bright and teeth crooked, and _oh_ , how he’s missed this view.

He kissed Suga hard on the mouth, fingers holding him tight by the ears. Suga’s branches burst into larger life, petals cascading around them like goddamn cherries (too flashy for Suga’s tastes), and he kissed back, locking his arms behind Daichi’s neck.

Suga shifted for a better angle, and that broke the sunshine spell. They tore away with a gasp, embrace still tight. Daichi couldn’t stop _grinning_ in Suga’s face. “That wasn’t the fluffy friend love kind of kiss that witch promised, huh?” he said, breath hot on Suga’s neck. Suga caught Daichi’s lip in his teeth, wild enthusiasm catching.

“No, sir, that was not,” he said when he pulled away, cheeks probably lime green by now. They giggled like little kids, foreheads bumping. “I can’t believe you _fainted_.”

“Yeah, that witch-bitch really had it out for me.” Daichi’s fingers worked up through his hair to pet the bases of two of his branches; Suga moaned, eyes closing. “You like that?” Daichi whispered, voice a cracked growl.

“ _Yes_ -” He froze and yanked Daichi back by the hair. “Filthy, Daichi.”

Daichi chuckled, sending fire burning through Suga’s veins. “But you love me.”

Suga hummed and kissed him again, softer this time. “Yes,” he muttered into Daichi’s open mouth, “I do.”

Daichi croaked.


End file.
